“All must get down!” cried the drivers unanimously. “Women and girls too, if you do not wish to sleep beneath the tamarisk-bush.”
“Walk in the water?” cried some in dismay.
“Walk barefoot, my dears,” answered Lamoureux; “thus you will earn the great pardon of which you all have need, for I know the sins of some of you are weighing devilish heavy.”
Old and young, women and girls, all got down, and with laughter and shrieks, every one began to prepare themselves for wading, taking off their shoes and tucking up their clothes. The drivers took the children astride on their shoulders, and Mathieu gallantly offered himself to the old lady in our waggon, the mother of the pretty Alarde:
“If you mount on my back,” he said, “I will undertake to carry you safely to the ‘Dead Goat.’” The old lady, who was so fat she walked with difficulty even on dry ground, did not refuse such a noble offer.
“You, my Frédéric, can charge yourself with Alarde,” said Mathieu with a wink to me, “and we will change from time to time to refresh ourselves, eh?”
And forthwith we each took up our burden without further ceremony, an example which was soon followed by all the young men in the other waggons.
Mathieu and his old girl laughed like fools. As for myself, when I felt the soft round arms of Alarde round my neck as she held the umbrella over our heads, I own it to this day, I would not have given up that journey across the Camargue in the rain and slush for a king’s ransom.
“Oh goodness, if my betrothed could see me now,” repeated Alarde at intervals; “my betrothed, who no longer loves me—my boy, my handsome boy!”
It was in vain that I tried to steal in with my little compliments and soft speeches, she neither heard nor saw me—but I could feel her breath on my neck and shoulder; I had only to turn my head a little and I could have kissed her, her hair brushed against mine; the close proximity of this youth and freshness bewitched me, and while she dreamt only of her lover, I, for my part, tried to imagine myself a second Paul carrying my Virginia.